Friday, December 12, 2014

11 December 2014
And this is not just another policy issue. Measured against the array of global threats that we face today – and there are many – terrorism, extremism, epidemics, poverty, nuclear proliferation – all challenges that know no borders – climate change absolutely ranks up there equal with all of them. And I challenge anyone who has thought about the science or listened – actually listened carefully to national security experts tell us that these dangers are real – I challenge them to tell us otherwise and to show us otherwise. I might add that we have, as Todd mentioned, the distinguished former Vice President of the United States and Nobel Prize winner who was the leader with all of us on this issue, but the first among equals, believe me, in his passion and commitment to this. And I’ve often heard him reciting the numbers of studies and the amazing amount of evidence that has been tallied up versus the paucity of a few usually industry-paid-for false analyses that try to suggest otherwise. And while no one here believes that a global climate agreement is going to be the silver bullet that eliminates this threat, I think everybody here can agree that we certainly won’t eliminate it without an agreement.

Now I know that everybody in this room is committed, all of us, but I think when you’re among the committed, you have a responsibility to be particularly candid. It seems that every time I speak at an event about climate change, someone introducing me, as Todd did today, said, “John Kerry’s been to every major gathering since Rio,” and it’s true. But I’ll tell you something, that’s kind of troubling. Because it was in Rio, as far back as 1992, when I heard the secretary-general, as Al did when we were there, declare, “Every bit of evidence I’ve seen persuades me that we are on a course leading to tragedy.”

...This morning, I woke up in Washington to the television news of a super-storm rainfall in California and Washington State – torrential, record-breaking rain in record-breaking short time. It’s become commonplace now to hear of record-breaking climate events. But this is 2014, 22 years later, and we’re still on a course leading to tragedy. So this is an issue that’s personal for me, just as it is for you, absolutely.
...
The truth is we will have no excuse worth using.

The science of climate change is science, and it is screaming at us, warning us, compelling us – hopefully – to act. Ninety-seven percent of peer- reviewed climate studies have confirmed that climate change is happening and that human activity is responsible. And I’ve been involved, as many of you have, in public policy debates for a long time. It’s pretty rare to get a simple majority or a supermajority of studies to say the same thing, but 97 percent over 20-plus years – that is a dramatic statement of fact that no one of good conscience or good faith should be able to ignore.
...And they agree that if we continue down the same path that we are on today, the world as we know it will change profoundly and it will change dramatically for the worse.

Now you don’t need a Ph.D. to be able to see for yourself that the world is already changing. You just need to pay attention. Thirteen of the warmest years on record have occurred since 2000, with this year, again, on track to be the warmest of all. We’re getting used to every next year being the warmest year of all. It seems almost every year that happens now.
...if we continue down the current path, the impacts are expected to increase exponentially.
For example, scientists predict that by the end of the century, the sea could rise a full meter.
...
Scientists also predict that climate change could mean even longer, more unpredictable monsoon ceilings – seasons and more extreme weather events. And while we can’t tell whether one particular storm is specifically caused by climate change, scientists absolutely do predict many more of these disastrous storms are likely to occur unless we stop and reverse course.

...
And what is particularly frustrating about the real-life damage that’s being done – and the threat of more to come – is that it doesn’t have to be inevitable. Nothing suggested this is inevitable. Human cost. There’s nothing preordained about the course that we’re on, except habits – bad habits. The challenge that we face may be immense, but I can’t underscore enough: This is not insurmountable.
...
I urge you to think about the economic impacts related to agriculture and food security – and how scientists estimate that the changing climate is going to yield – is going to reduce the capacity of crops to produce the yields they do today in rice or maize or wheat, and they could fall by 2 percent every single decade.

...we have to factor in the cost of survival itself. And if we do, we will find that the cost of pursuing clean energy now is far cheaper than paying for the consequences of climate change later.
...
Ask yourself, if Al Gore and Dr. Pachauri and Jim Hansen and the people who’ve been putting the science out there for years are wrong about this and we make these choices to do the things I’m talking about, what’s the worst thing that can happen to us for making these choices? Create a whole lot of new jobs. Kick our economies into gear. Have healthier people, reduce the cost of healthcare. Live up to our environmental responsibilities. Have a world that’s more secure because we have energy that isn’t dependent on one part of the world or another. That’s the worst that can happen to us.
But what happens if the climate skeptics are wrong? Catastrophe.

Monday, April 14, 2014

1. CO2 is a greenhouse gas
2. Greenhouse gases have a warming effect
3. Human activity has caused atmospheric CO2 to increase over the last 100+ years
4. The Earth warmed during the 20th century
5. Global sea levels rose about 7.5 inches since 1901

6. We can't burn fossil fuels forever without running out
7. Alternative energy research is a good thing
8. Energy efficiency is a good thing
9. Destroying the environment is a bad thing
10. I want the best, safest world possible for future generations

Some things I don't believe:
11. The Earth is a more dangerous place at 61F than at 59F.
12. Carbon dioxide taxes can prevent bad weather
13. Increased CO2 causes drought

If the hard evidence supported the idea that trace CO2 is dangerous, I would be fighting very hard ON YOUR SIDE.

CO2 hysteria risks making energy less available and affordable for poor people who currently have no connection to stable grid power. Many of
those people's lives could be greatly improved by a big honkin' coal plant instead of some solar panels and wind turbines.

Tuesday, April 08, 2014

"If anyone was hoping to find the Grand-Poo-Bah of climate skeptics at the centre of the string-art puzzle in Black and White, I have bad news.

There is no private JournoList (or SkeptoList) where we discuss strategic moves and adopt new key phrases in the PR war. There is no hub where original content gets produced by Exxon researchers and dished out in waves to each key site. The skeptics network is organic, evolving, competitive, cooperative, and above all aimed at finding the truth. That’s why it’s winning."

Thursday, April 03, 2014

"Christiana Figueres has not only been active in the public arena and in the field of NGOs, she also collaborates actively with private sector companies that align themselves with climate friendly goals. Ms. Figueres served as Senior Adviser to C-Quest Capital, a carbon finance company focusing on programmatic CDM investments.[35] She was the Principal Climate Change Advisor to ENDESA Latinoamérica, the largest private utility in Latin America with operations in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru. She was also Vice Chair of the Rating Committee of the Carbon Rating Agency, the first entity to apply credit rating expertise to carbon assets"

Wednesday, April 02, 2014

"I have been chairing the Energy and Climate Working Group of the Belgian Federal (advisory) Council for Sustainable Development since 1998. This has allowed me to practise consensus-building in a group with stakeholders of very diverse interests and opinions (including electricity producers, employers, trade unions, environment and development NGOs)."

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Mann: "Climate change is already a threat to national security. There’s increased conflict...essentially, a perfect storm for intense conflict and threats to national security...

...that 13-foot [Sandy] surge that flooded a large part of Manhattan, at least one of those 13 feet was due to human caused global warming...we are already seeing climate change take a great toll on our economy here in the U.S...We know that even a little bit of warming in tropical regions leads to a very sharp decrease in agricultural productivity

...if we see seven degrees Fahrenheit warming of the planet, which is within range of the projections if we continue with business as usual fossil fuel burning, then many regions of the globe will literally be unlivable
...you could be forgiven for mistaking this report for a post-apocalyptic plot that Hollywood had written about it."

Thursday, March 27, 2014

"In what is likely a first for a Showtime series, the program's content was vetted by a panel of nine climate scientists, including Joe Romm of the Center for American Progress and Climate Progress blog, Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University, and Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University."

"The Sierra Club’s claims are based on opacity, which measures the thickness of emissions from a smoke stack by how much light passes through it, the AP says. Minnesota Power disputes the contentions in the Sierra Club’s intent-to-sue notice. Officials with the utility tell the AP opacity can be caused by factors other than pollutants, citing water vapor as an example."

Monday, March 24, 2014

"Hinderaker is the kind who will always be fellating someone -- at the moment he's a Koch-blowing liar. He choose his side and he's on his knees for the money. It's an old story. Why bang my head against his wall?"

Friday, March 21, 2014

"Later that night, after Box had a few sips of Greenlandic whiskey, he talked about his dream of forming a Climate Delta Force, funded by philanthropists, which could be dispatched to study climate catastrophes in real time. “Give me two and a half million dollars,” he told me, “and I could change the world.”"

"It’s very important to resist the temptation towards the protection of the individual property. There’s a temptation on this to say, I’m protecting myself, I’m making my house flood-proof. Obviously people do that, and that’s fine, but I think the emphasis has to be on how we can protect ourselves collectively."

"“The rate of climate change now may be as fast as any extended warming period over the past 65 million years, and it is projected to accelerate in the coming decades,”

An 8F rise – among the most likely scenarios could make once rare extreme weather events – 100-year floods, droughts and heat waves – almost annual occurrences, the scientists said.

Other sudden systemic changes could lie ahead – such as large scale collapse of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, collapse of part of the Gulf Stream, loss of the Amazon rain forest, die-off of coral reefs, and mass extinctions."

Monday, March 17, 2014

"Both [Timmons Roberts, who runs Brown’s Climate and Development Lab and is an environmental studies and sociology professor] and the students knew [Rep. Arthur Handy, D-Cranston] and had backed his legislative efforts at the General Assembly. They had also previously worked on legislation creating the Rhode Island Climate Change Commission.
The financial support that [Brown President Christina Paxson] offered (Roberts declined to specify how much) allowed the group to hire student interns and consultants to help Handy fashion a new bill.
The group brought aboard Ken Payne, who once worked in the state’s Energy Resources office, to craft the bill. Meg Kerr, an alumna and environmental scientist, was hired to help organize discussions with groups of environmentalists, state regulators and municipal officials."

"As of Sunday, the average temperature for the month of March was running nearly 8F below average. Interestingly, the last month that was above average was October 2013! According to NOAA, meteorological winter (December-February) was the 6th coldest on record for Minnesota. Unfortunately, the Climate Prediction Center still shows that much of the eastern two-thirds of the nation will be below average through the rest of the month. When will it end?"

Sunday, March 16, 2014

"The extremely cold weather caused even more problems for the railroad. BNSF had to run shorter trains -- 4,500 feet long, instead of the normal 7,000-foot length -- to make sure the air brakes still worked. Crews had to manually clear frozen switches and had to spend more time indoors. Trains could not travel as fast."

Friday, March 14, 2014

NASA spends millions to fly first and business class with little oversight
"Space agency administrator Bolden charged taxpayers $16,515 one way for a business class ticket from Beijing to Washington D.C. in 2010, NASA confirmed. The agency ‘s reports list the average coach class fare for the trip at $958.
In other cases, Bolden not only upgraded himself, but also flew with his wife, Alexis, charging taxpayers premium fares for her tickets as well. The trips included one from Tokyo to Houston that cost $3,571 per person, and another where the Boldens flew business class from Frankfurt to Washington DC for $4,463 per ticket."
Flashback: NASA Chief Bolden Lauds Obama's Climate Change Plan

Sunday, March 09, 2014

"But my white-shoe lawyers in the Michael Mann suit charged half-a-million bucks for a year in which everything they filed on my behalf they lost. Or, rather, I lost. The last thing I heard from them, in late 2013, was a proposal with regards to billing rates for 2015. That doesn't suggest they were planning on reversing their losing streak any time soon. I fired them on Boxing Day, and, when shortly afterwards they filed a formal notice of withdrawal with the court, there were no fewer than five listed lawyers, one of whom I'd never even met.

So, when Popehat says Mark Steyn has a fool for a client, I would humbly suggest that for over a year those five lawyers had a fool for a client. I was like most foreigners around the world - all I knew about American "justice" was that it was ruinously expensive and that it took up years of your life. As someone who loves America, I carelessly assumed that there must be more to it than that, only to have every single cliche about the system resoundingly confirmed."

Thursday, March 06, 2014

"McCarthy is particularly passionate about the health impacts of climate change, saying “people don’t realize [it] is the biggest challenge we face from a public health point of view,” pointing to high asthma rates. She described how warmer temperatures lead to more ozone, which causes more frequent and severe asthma attacks."

"Roy Spencer, like a handful of other people besieged inside climate science, is a person I deeply admire. I do so because they like Mr FOIA have moral courage and that’s a lonely road to walk when you’re forever going up against all the big battalions. It would be so much easier for them, their careers and no doubt their families if they just shut up, gave up or submitted to the relentless intimidation. They don’t, they hang on in year after year and they take a lot of elective bullets for that integrity.
They are our true heroes.
History will be kind to them and it’ll be at the expense of their detractors, to adapt a very fitting quote. That day is not as far away as people might think."

Tuesday, March 04, 2014

"Fresh off the first family’s sixth annual winter vacation to the Hawaiian island of Oahu — billed to American taxpayers at a cost of $4 million — Michelle Obama and the first daughters Malia and Sasha will now jet off to China for over a week of much-needed sightseeing."

"It is a happy conceit in the climate change community that true believers are sophisticated, fact-based practitioners of science and that skeptics essentially are a bunch of superstitious nitwits who refuse to respect the - all bow - climate change consensus.

If that were true, you would expect the science-loving know-it-alls to welcome opportunities to challenge the arguments of "deniers" of global warming. To the contrary, climate change groups have been engaging in a spirited battle to muzzle dissenters and pressure news organizations not to publish skeptical opinion"

Monday, March 03, 2014

"I’m still interested in it. And I think there are a lot of things that we can do like this transition that we’re making to natural gas thanks to our resources and I still believe in nuclear power as one of the big parts of the answers, and that’s almost impossible to get. And I think we need to address greenhouse gas emissions. But I try to get involved in issues were I see a legislative result… But there’s going to be no movement in the Congress of the United States certainly this year and probably next year. So I just leave the issue alone because I don’t see a way through it, and there are certain fundamentals, for example nuke power, that people on the left will never agree with me on. So why should I waste my time when I know the people on the left are going to reject nuclear power? I don’t believe that you can really succeed in reducing greenhouse gases unless you have a lot of nuclear power plants. They’re against them. Well, okay, I move on to other issues."